The Boy in the Mirror: You
by UltimateParadox
Summary: Roxas is swept into the world inside the mirror in his dreams. Part 3 in series, AU. Hiatus
1. Dive into the Heart

**A/N: Hello. It's been a while, hasn't it, Kingdom Hearts fans? I've certainly missed you, but I've been wallowing in Project Diva 2****nd**** land, and just recently popped in a Kingdom Hearts game. And now I'm in the mood. **

**I present to you the third and (maybe?) final part of The Boy in the Mirror series. It is advised you read both parts prior to this before reading. Chronologically, Vanity comes first, but The Boy in the Mirror was written first.**

* * *

><p><strong>The Boy in the Mirror: You<strong>

**Part 1: Dive into the Heart**

I already know what they're thinking. My sister and I have lived with the looks for a long time. They're the looks that say, "Those two aren't normal."

That's not exactly right. Naminé and I are perfectly normal kids. We can read and write and we don't make any trouble. I guess the fact that we're twins can be weird, but no, that's not why we get those looks. It's because of our mom.

It happened a long time ago, when Naminé and I were very small. Something happened and Mom broke inside, somewhere, and while I can't remember asking Dad a million times why Mom had to leave, I'm certain I did. I've always been impulsively curious; Dad says it's something I got from my mother.

Mom went crazy. That's why she left. That's why we get those looks. That's why we've become "Roxas and Naminé, the children of that lady who got sent away because she's a loon".

I say left like she was gone forever. That's also not right. Mom's home now. She's better. She came back a while ago, but there is an absence in my past that tells of troubled times. And during that absence, the neighbors took the reigns and ran with it.

All of their kids know. All of their friends know. And there is absolutely no way that Naminé and I don't know.

If a stranger were to look at us, my family would look normal. However, this town knows. They know about Mom, they know she's recovered, and they know Dad, Naminé, and I are completely unrelated. Still, they stare and whisper. Then, the whispers reach the ears of the stranger, and the stares and whispers carry on to the next stranger in an endless cycle that won't stop until years after we're all dead and gone.

So I always, _always_ know what they're thinking when they look at me. My classmates try to be polite and look away when I catch them, but I know. This town is too small for such things to be forgotten by the sands of time, so I know.

I see one of them, the one with the dark hair and the tiny stud in his nose. I wonder if he knows it's against the school policy. He breaks the rules, and nobody stares at him. Is body art not as worthy of frightened reproach as being the son of the woman who lost it? I'd tell him to stop staring, but it's just a waste of breath.

I can always tell. I always know.

* * *

><p>Walking home from school with Naminé is part of my normal routine. Waiting for her at the school gates and watching groups of friends pass by, chattering excitedly about their plans to hang out at the mall or to go behind the old, abandoned factory to smoke, is also part of my routine. Naminé takes her time to collect her things (and quite possibly her bearings; I have never asked), so the wait is always longer than most people have the patience for. I've seen how other people waiting at these very gates get red-faced and indignant, but I don't mind.<p>

There she is. She smiles when she catches my eyes and waves the hand that isn't holding a few textbooks, wrapped in brown paper bags from the supermarket, to her chest. We walk together down the cracked sidewalks, bracing ourselves against the same autumn winds that are really beginning to get cold, as we go. We take an obscure route back home, having long since realized that if we travel a more public path, we get stared at or harassed.

It's never escalated into anything, but Naminé and I really do prefer the solitude of our own friendly conversations, even if the walk is just a little bit longer than it has to be.

The silence upon returning home is also nothing new. Dad works during the day and always comes home exhausted. Cloudy memories of my mom come to mind, back before she brought this whole storm around our family, and were full of laughter and smiles. I know Mom's home now, as she always is, but I can't recall any time after she came home that she was quite like the vibrant woman she used to be.

I find Mom in the kitchen. She must not have heard me come in because she nearly drops her mug of coffee, cinnamon roll flavored if the smell is any indication, when she turns around. Her smile is small as she greets me, briefly asking about Naminé. I point her to the den and she breezes by me, silent as a ghost.

Next to the coffee pot is a small framed picture of when we were happy. I wonder if that's what held Mom's attention for so long. My eyes trace my younger self's features, round and babyish, and God, my eyes were so big. Naminé is my twin, so she was also just as freakishly cute as I was. Even though we've grown up and our lips aren't always pulled into those bright, carefree smiles, we've barely changed. The baby fat is gone, but I can still find traces of myself in the photograph.

It's Mom and Dad that have changed a lot. Whatever dream of a life they'd had when this photograph was taken has been stamped out. Dad's hair has grown longer and I believe it's because he's too stressed out to even bother to care about its length. His eyes don't light up like they did anymore, but sometimes I fool myself into thinking I see sparks of it, lost in the sorrow. He's also lost his cheerful disposition and has become almost as quiet as Mom.

And Mom, her hair is always cut short. In the picture it looked like she was working on its length, ribbons tied into it like a gypsy. Her smiles are like glass and her eyes are always looking through me, like she's trying to find something. I don't understand it, and it kind of creeps me out, but I allow it. It's much better than Mom not being here at all, or even going off the deep end again.

Maybe.

Sometimes I think life would be a little better if she'd just gone away and stayed. It's cruel and heartless, and I'd never express this secret thought to anyone, because her suffering isn't a joke or a chore.

I think Naminé knows. She makes an effort not to talk about Mom with me. I'm grateful for it.

I give the picture one more furtive glance before I place it face down next to the pot.

* * *

><p>The homework spread over my desk is simple, annoyingly so, but what is even more annoying is the fact that I'm not getting any of the problems done. I'm too busy listening to sobs.<p>

My room is across the hall from my parents'. I'm always quiet in my room, always playing music at low volumes or through headphones, and the television is rarely on, so I wonder if they know how easy it is to hear sounds through the distance between us. I know, though, because their conversations keep me up at night.

"Kairi, please," I hear Dad's deep, rumbling voice try to soothe. I want to yell at him, to tell him it's not working, but I stay quiet and I listen with a deadened heart to my mother's crying. There is no greater way to make yourself feel like a nobody than to quietly observe another's suffering and allow yourself to do nothing about it. "What's wrong?"

Mom blubbers something through her tears that doesn't make a whole lot of sense through the walls, but her voice is shaky enough to know that even if I was in the room with her I'd still be grasping at straws.

"H-hey! Kairi, what is that?" There is evident shock in Dad's voice overlaying his concern. Mom goes panicky for a moment before she quiets down. It's silent for a moment more before I hear Dad practically bellow, "Give that to me! Where did you even find that?"

Mom shrieks for him to return whatever he's taken from her, words flying from her mouth unaccounted for and even a little bit angry. My eyes go wide at her volume; it's been years since I've heard mom actually hold up a conversation that didn't have to do with school or dinner, and her outrage is something foreign and frightening.

The only warning I have that someone is coming my way is the sudden crash of their door smacking into the wall before my bedroom door opens. Without the barriers between us Mom's distress is ever louder, but I can't see into the other room passed my father's ominous form in my doorway.

"Dad?" I ask, not quite able to shake the wariness from my voice. I'm up from the wrinkled sheets of my bed in an instant to meet him at the door. Before another word can be said, he holds a shard of glass out towards me, as long as my hand from palm to the tip of my middle finger and about as wide as two of my fingers pressed close together. It takes me a moment to realize this fragment is a mirror, but I can barely see my face in its surface, clouded with fingerprints and what looks like rust.

"Roxas, do me a favor," Dad says as I look back up at him. I'm surprised by the conviction in his face. It's almost like the shattered man I know has been replaced by something strong and protective, like a bear. "and keep that away from your mother."

He doesn't say anything more and I have no words to say to him, at least none that are able to force themselves out of my suddenly swollen throat. Mom's screaming doesn't die down, but it does muffle once Dad shuts the door, and I wonder if this will be when he notices their privacy has always been compromised.

After a moment, my door cracks open again and Naminé pokes her head in, eyes wide like a scared deer and lips curled down in a frown. "Roxas...?"

"Yeah?"

"...Are Mom and Dad gonna be okay?"

I don't know. It's been so long since something happened that I could not find an answer to. I can't even think of anything to placate her. She takes my silence as an answer, however, and dips her head away a little, a gesture I'm used to seeing at school when people stare and whisper, always staring and whispering, and I don't like it.

I send her away with a shaky smile I've pulled from somewhere deep inside, not quite heartfelt but definitely necessary. The door clicks shut and I collapse onto my bed again, gaze settling onto the glass shard.

I tap the touch-light on my side table and inspect it further. Using my shirt like a dishrag, I begin to rub at the dirty surface, approving of the fingerprints smoothing away, but I am unnerved by the rust. I know steel-backed mirrors definitely needed polishing, but I'm not an expert in mirrors, and have no idea what the backing is made out of. Also, the rust is on the glass side of the mirror, so I'm confused even further.

The rust comes off too easily.

It's too red.

It's not rust, is it?

I drop the mirror shard so suddenly that I can't care when it bounces off the sheets and onto the carpet. My shirt is off before I even register that I'm moving and it falls on top of the shard, the red flakes caught in the fabric challenging me from the floor.

It's blood.

The whimpering I hear is my own and I take a deep breath before I clamp my lips down shut. It's flaking, dry, red-as-hell blood, and I need to calm down. Knowing doesn't change the fact that it can't hurt me. I don't know why the macabre sight disturbs me so much, but a faint memory, hidden behind a veil of bright, washed out light, of a yellow room covered in blood and glass and _whyismommycrying_ assaults my head.

I remember. That was the day mom went crazy. But what had happened?

It was about a mirror. The little, white mirror from Mom's parents' house had been shattered all over the floor of Naminé's room and...

And there was blood on the mirror.

Was this shard from back then?

I don't want to think about it. I don't want to know.

The mirror can stay right there on the floor tonight. I'm tired and shaken and Mom's shrieks have finally fallen into quiet sobs. I want to sleep and I'm resigning myself to it.

I tap the light off and sink my head into the pillow. Just as I feel myself falling into the depths of sleep, I hear Mom's voice rise again, just once, to bark, "Riku, he looks just like him!", but I'm too far gone to care.

* * *

><p>Wow.<p>

It feels like I'm falling, falling forever down the rabbit hole. It feels like cool ocean waves are lapping at my skin and that I'm painlessly drowning.

When my eyes open, all I see is dark space, blacker than night, but it feels natural and calming. I left my head up to look down to where I'm falling to, but the same featureless expanse meets my eyes. Maybe I'm blind. In this place, I don't think I could care if I wanted to.

It's peaceful. My heart doesn't ache and the darkness feels like it wants me. It doesn't feel like my home at all, with a sad sister and a broken mother and a father who loses more of himself every day. No, this darkness is accepting.

A light breeches the darkness, soft and far off and doesn't hurt my eyes with its suddenness. I'm falling towards it, headfirst, and I feel weightless enough that I think I'll drop to it as light as a feather. As I draw closer to the light I see shapes in it; it looks like the stained glass windows of the church around the street corner, or the lamps at the restaurant twenty minutes down the road in Dad's old Accord.

My feet are getting heavier and I feel myself flip until I'm no longer slowly careening towards the light headfirst. My stomach comes back to me with a sickening lurch as the weightlessness departs and my blood freezes in its veins at the thought of slamming my full weight against _anything_ from this long a fall. I'm no longer a feather. I am a bowling ball.

The light no longer looks like a light. It looks solid as glass and the church windows I know would shatter under my weight. If the pace speeds up, the platform will crack beneath my feet that feel way too heavy.

I almost don't notice when my feet touched down without a sound on the glass platform. Not a single blemish appears beneath me.

The glass is flawless, but what really pulls me into the platform is the image made out of the varying-colored glasses. From my position now, it's hard to see, but in my fall I'd noticed two boys, similar in appearance and close to my age, eyes closed as if in sleep, almost like they are frozen there. The image was finely detailed and I struggle to figure out where I had landed on it.

I back up towards the edge of the platform and pedal my arms furiously when my heel dips off the edge in order to throw my balance away from falling. Gravity is in full effect now and I don't want to risk falling anymore.

"Hey!"

I jump and look back up sharply. Something is racing towards me at an alarming rate, falling to the platform faster than I could have ever hoped to. As it nears I can make out a humanoid shape, four limbs and a head and something else, something in it's hand, but I don't know what it is.

My mind finally supplies me with the knowledge I couldn't access, tells me that the shape is another person, another boy, and what's in his hand is something that looks blunt and potentially very painful. Then, it reminds me that I am going to get my head smashed in by that blunt and potentially very painful weapon if I don't move out of the way.

I duck out of the way in a clumsy roll to have the boy just barely miss me, his weapon clanging down on the platform. I'm astounded that this time, just like before, the glass doesn't shatter, but I have little time to think on it when the stranger raises his weapon to me.

It's an intricate, yet shockingly simple thing. It almost looks like a sword, but it also looks like a key. The hilt is large, gold and blue, and from there the length of the weapon expands out. It's rounded like a bat, thick as my arm, and at the end there are teeth. They jut outward to look like a crown. A key chain dangles from the hilt, silver and round, made up of circles that make a symbol I don't know.

I focus on the hilt again, on the hand wrapped around its center, and trace along the attached arm until I am looking at the boy's face. It is eerily familiar, and I feel like I should definitely know his face, but my memory won't let me solve this puzzle. I glance down at my feet, desperately thinking the platform should have an answer, but all I see are golden planes.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" the boy demands and I feel my eyes rocket back to his face with such speed the world blurs for a moment and I feel lightheaded.

He doesn't look like the kind of person to hurt others, a sincerity burning in his blue eyes, but there is a furrow in his brow and a grimace on his lips. The strange key-bat he is holding is leveled at my chest. My eyes are drawn to the brown spikes of his hair for a moment, wondering at their peculiarity, but he subtly shifts his weight in a way I barely catch, so I focus on him again.

I guess I must have taken too long to answer, because the boy moves with lightning speed, key thrust forward in a way that would surely knock my head straight off my shoulders. I duck to the side and feel the force of his blow brush by my face like a powerful gust of wind and my heart stops.

He's fast. He's strong. He doesn't like me.

"W-wait!" I plead as I back pedal further away, towards the center of the platform. He does as I ask, legs held in a stance that I'm certain will let him propel himself at me again if he chooses to, but he pauses. "M-my name is Roxas. I don't know where I am or how I got here, so please, stop attacking me!"

"R-Roxas?" In a flash of glimmering lights, the key-weapon is gone, and the boy has rushed up to me. "You're Roxas?"

"Y-yes?"

He looks astounded. "But how? There's no reason for you to be here! There's no _way_ you could be here!"

I don't understand him, but before I can ask for any clarification, cold, strong fingers grip my right leg. Something like horror washed over me in an instant and the boy in front of me looks confused for a moment. The fingers on my leg pull with impossible strength and I collide to the platform, banging my chin on the glass.

Something whispers into my ear, "You look just like _that boy_," and the fingers pull me again, swinging me around the glass until they let go and I'm flying. I hit the platform again and bounce. I barely manage to stop myself from falling off the edge of the platform.

I look back to where the boy is standing, no longer stunned, but in the same battle-ready stance as before. The key has reappeared from elsewhere. This doesn't surprise me as much as the other boy suddenly standing there, wrapped in sinewy black material with dark, dark hair, a weapon that looks something like the blue-eyed boy's, but it is made of angry red, black, and gray gears clenched in his hand. His back is to me, but I can still see clearly that he is formidable. The new boy moves fluidly to take on the same stance as the other.

Quickly, before my eyes, they clash weapons. When the two bizarre key and gear weapons touch, a metallic ringing echoes through the space, like two blades parrying. They move like spitting vipers, lashing out and evading like they have rubber spines and enforced bones. I can barely keep up with the movements until the dark-haired one swings his gearblade up and swipes the key from the other boy's hands.

It swings into an arch and flies behind him, closer to me. I crawl on my hands and knees until my fingers fit around the strange hilt before climbing to my feet. Neither notice me, as the armed boy continues swiping at the other, who just barely manages to dodge the swift strikes.

It's an unfair fight now and everyone knows it.

I don't know why I decide to do this, but I run straight for the boy in black's back and bring the key down hard on his shoulder.

The fighting stops for a moment, the blue-eyed boy's eyes going wide with surprise, but he smiles slowly, approvingly. The boy I'd hit is breathing heavily and his shoulders tremble. The one I'd hit with the key is set lower than the other and I think I might have dislocated it. I let my brief stint with adrenaline fade away and relax my grip on the hilt of the weapon as I think the battle's finished.

It takes less than three seconds for the dark-haired boy to prove me wrong. In a whirlwind of speed and motion I am flat on my back on the platform staring into the scariest, most malicious yellow eyes ever on a person.

The dark-haired boy's face is an exact copy of the blue-haired boy's, but I am quick to realize that my loyalties lie with the other boy, and not this one, not when he looks so threatening and—

Oh, God. The dislocated shoulder pops back into its socket and the boy above me doesn't flinch. Instead, he sneers, "I _hate_ your face, kid."

I might not have felt myself touch the platform earlier, but I will never forget the feeling of my ribs and insides being punctured by that boy's gear sword. Blood gurgles in my mouth as it rushes up my throat and I can only croak and gasp.

The boy's weight is lifted off of me, but I hardly notice it. The weapon is ripped right back out and I might have screamed.

The blue-eyed boy's face is suddenly all I can see. "Hey, hold on!" he cries. "Don't die on me, Roxas! You can't do this to me!"

I can only see black again. The boy's words sound far away and I can't see him, so I'm not sure what to do with them. For a second I feel like I'm falling again. Another light in the darkness, another platform? No, it's not.

It's too fast. It's too bright. As it approaches I feel like I have to squint, but I can't. It's a green light, shaped like a star, and it lands on my chest with a clinking sound.

I see a vision of three teenagers like myself, one who could be my spitting image, a girl laughing behind her hand, and a tall boy who looks a little too stern. Despite this, I feel like I'm seeing some friends of mine that I haven't seen in a long, long time.

* * *

><p>"Roxas, wake up!"<p>

I jump up in bed, knocking my cocoon of sheets away and gasping. Sweat rolls down my face.

I'm alive.

"Roxas!"

I look up and Naminé is standing in my doorway, frowning at me. It's not the same forlorn expression as last night, but there's something of a pout in it. She's exasperated.

"Get up, we've got school. Get ready!"

School? Really?

My chest hurts. It must have been a dream. This must be a phantom pain kind of thing.

Because I am alive.

I step out of bed to heed my sister's not-quite-advice, and I step on something sharp. I cry out and fall back onto the disheveled bed. My shirt from last night is still on the ground, and I lift it up. The mirror shard is still there. I examine my foot a second after and a thin, red line of blood is beading up from the cut. It corresponds to the edge of the fragment.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Chapter 1 is finished. Tell me how you like it, all right?**

**There are two more chapters left to write for this thing. I don't know when the next one is coming out, but it shouldn't be too long. I need to update Joker first!**


	2. Fragments of Sorrow

**The Boy in the Mirror: You**

**Part 2: Fragments of Sorrow**

A day can be foretold by its morning, and currently I don't think there's a greater truth. My foot still sends little twinges of pain up my leg when I step down on the thin slice (I'd wrapped it up in toilet paper before slipping on my socks to prevent any blood from staining them, but I think it was for naught) and the walk home from school is, as usual, long and dreary, but Naminé seems to be trying to alleviate the awkwardness. I tell her how my day went and about the homework I didn't finish and she smiles a little before warning me not to make it a habit.

She doesn't have to worry. I intend to graduate and leave this sorry place behind.

I don't tell her about the other times today, though, that I found myself drifting away in my thoughts. I think if I had any other reputation, I would have been reprimanded, but I was mostly ignored. As it was, I had been free all day to think back on that obscure dream.

My chest still hurts a little. With wakefulness it should have faded away, but my breath hitches a little with each breath and if I turn my body too much the aches become very pronounced in my ribs. It's not mind-numbing pain, but it brings flashbacks of the dream's end, of gears tearing me open and snapping my bones like toothpicks. The fragility of the human body is a wonder.

When the door to the house opens up, I backpedal. There's a sweet scent in the air with a hint of spice. Naminé and I share expressions of disbelief—the only person at home during the day is Mom, and Mom holes herself up in her room more often than not, jumping at shadows or staring at something we can't see with a somber look. She doesn't cook until dinnertime, and that's only on good days, but normally dad whips up something simple in his exhaustion. Mom's coffee is never this strong either, but I finally figure out that I smell cinnamon.

"Mom?" Naminé asks into the house. We step in carefully, kicking off our shoes and taking light steps toward the kitchen. There's a rattling sound before Mom steps out with a tray, three mugs balanced expertly on its gleaming surface. I figure it out. The mugs are full with steaming hot chocolate and I can see the cinnamon sticks she's inserted into the drinks.

I haven't seen her prepare that drink ever, but Dad told us stories about how she would make some for him as a comfort when they were growing up. He said the cinnamon was a helpful tip from a friend she used to know.

"Welcome home," says Mom. "I'm glad that I timed it right. I made some for you as an apology...for last night."

Mom's better than she used to be, and she was never stupid. She knows her episodes are terrible and frightening, but this is the first time she's ever done anything to make amends. I'm awful, I know, for assuming she has to make amends for anything, but I don't think on that all too much, certainly not now. Right now, I want to cry, because this kind of behavior is _normal_, and its an earth-shattering breakthrough.

Excited, Naminé gleefully accepts the peace offering and I follow her lead with trembling hands. The heat barely permeates the ceramic and I don't burn myself, and the smell of the cinnamon cocoa is heavenly. I don't know if I can drink through the lump in my throat.

It's there for two reasons: I'm moved by Mom's improvement, but I'm also terrified that this won't last. I'm scared that by tomorrow she'll withdraw again, a shell of a mother with a family in shambles.

A door opens from somewhere in the house and Naminé and I nearly drop our mugs. Mom, in the act of placing the tray down on a side table in the den, glances at our hands until she's sure we've renewed our grips. Who the hell is in my house?

There's an old, beat up couch, springs poking in the wrong places aplenty, against the wall of the den and Mom sits down gracefully, patting the ratty cushions to her right and left. Numbly, we sit, and a moment later Dad strolls into the room, yawning mouth hidden behind a hand.

"Dad?" I ask this time. I try to balance my mug on my thigh, but the bottom is too hot and I pick it back up again a moment later. "Don't you have work?"

"Called out," Dad explains. He peers down at the cups in our hands, Mom having taken up the third and last mug, and can't hide his surprise. "I didn't...I didn't sleep well last night. Kairi, did you make cocoa?"

Mom giggles. I didn't know she could make that sound. "I thought you'd nap longer, so I didn't make any for you. I'm sorry."

No one has a response to that. I thought my day would turn out poorly by way of my painful morning, but I'm beginning to believe it's just going to be strange. I, for one, am just happy no one is bringing up the mirror shard I've tucked away in my desk drawer.

* * *

><p>Sleep is quick to descend upon me that night, something I attribute to my brain trying to cope with the bizarre nature of the day, but I am once again dreaming that I am falling through the abyss of black. The platform is coming close again, but the image on its stained glass has changed: three colorful, star-shaped objects are joined together in a trinity, green, blue, and orange, and I'm intrigued by the design.<p>

I land gracefully as the night previous, with my feet whispering across a panel of green glass. The darkness around me is deathly quiet until I take a few steps forward, causing echoes to rebound off the nothingness around me. It's eerie, but nothing I can't shrug off.

After all, last time I was here, I died. I guess it isn't true that if you die in a dream in you'll die in reality. This is, however, my first time with a recurring dream, and I can only grasp at straws as to what my subconscious is trying to tell me.

A tinkling sound punctures through the silence. At the platform's edge, a small platform the size of my desk's top at school shimmers into existence, also made of sturdy stained glass in nonsensical patterns. My feet move on their own by my own curiosity until I'm standing on it. Funnily enough I don't feel like I'm going to plummet off if I lose my balance. Moments later a second platform, reminiscent of the first, appears just before the one I'm standing on, and I realize what's happening. "Follow the yellow brick road, huh?"

Sure enough, as soon as I step onto it, another appears, and I'm creating a pathway. Dream logic powers every fearless step until I see a large tower with a flat top. The glimmering path beneath my feet winds around the tower, illuminated by many shining lights, until I've reached the top. It's another large platform—the one I was on previously must have been another tower's apex—and my brave trek through the dream world stops there. I waver, one foot on the big platform and the other on the path, as I spy the brown-haired boy with the giant key standing at the center of the tower's top, watching me with wide, blue eyes.

"Y-you're alive!" cries the boy as he runs at me. I try to step back, but the pathway vanishes beneath my feet, and I end up propelling my arms to save myself. I don't want to count how many times I've nearly plummeted from these dream towers, but I don't have to worry. A strong hand clasps onto my forearm and pulls me back to safety.

"You again!" I breathe. "Why am I dreaming this again?"

The boy's elated expression morphs, partly confused and the other disturbed. "Dream? Roxas, this is reality. Maybe not yours, but definitely mine."

I frown. "If I'm not dreaming, then why am I still alive?"

"...He must not be strong enough to take your heart yet," the boy murmurs and I startle. I don't think I was supposed to hear that.

"What?"

Smiling broadly for a reason I can't place, the boy points to himself. "I never introduced myself. I'm Sora." The smile wavers suddenly and he looks away. "The other guy you saw, the one who hurt you, his name is Vanitas. If he catches you, he'll just kill you again."

I frown even harder. Maybe because I'm sure I'm dreaming and that my subconscious was taking me down a crooked road where Sora is trying to keep me away from waking up, but I'm more affronted that one of my dream characters is so keen on killing me. Maybe ripping out my heart. "And why does he want me dead so badly?"

Biting his lip, Sora shrugs. "Vanitas is a creature of darkness. He doesn't need a reason to do something evil. You wouldn't be his first victim, but you'd definitely be the first one he hunts down on this side of the glass."

That is as baffling as it is horrifying. "I'm not sure I'm following. I don't know what 'this side of the glass' means, but...that guy's really hurt people?"

Sora's tentative expression disappears under the sharp spikes of his eyebrows, mouth set in a grim line of determination. "He has. Before I was around to stop him, I know he hurt a lot of people. He's a monster with an animal's hunger. He's a demon without a heart to bear the weight of his emotions. He's predatory and volatile, a lethal combination to many a person."

"And now he wants me dead, is that right? That's crap!"

"Huh?"

I'll admit Sora can spin a pretty tale, and whether or not it is full of truth or lies is irrelevant before the tidal wave of fury crashing turbulently through my body. I live in a world that judges me before they know me with a family on such a fragile balance between peaceful and chaotic that we could have been a bunch of carnival style tightrope acrobats, and I _really_ do not need this kind of treatment from my subconscious. Dream or no dream, this Vanitas guy makes me angry deep down to my core. "It's just crap. I didn't even do anything to deserve that."

"I told you. He's evil, Roxas." Then, Sora grins mischievously. "But don't think you're so special. He hates me, too, and there's another guy running around here besides yourself. I'm doing double duty, watching your backs!"

"Well, isn't that _spectacular_?" I'm annoyed, really annoyed, and I'm wondering how I can wake myself up from this. I don't care about Sora's heroics or a stranger's Vanitas dilemma. I'm a little more preoccupied that I'm being unjustly hunted in my sleep, a time of respite, and I'm justifiably mad.

Whether or not Sora understands my mood is lost on me, because while his suddenly comforting hand on my shoulder proves he doesn't, there's something in his eyes that tells me he's not that oblivious. "Hey, chin up. You make it sound like you don't stand a chance. People have gotten away from him before."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah! Like...two, and I might be rounding that number up, but...one person definitely has! She's stronger than she comes off as, you know."

"That's _real_ helpful there, pal," I grouse.

"And hey! There's me! He's been trying to pound my face in for a while now, not that time means a whole lot here. But you got big, so..." Sora trails off and he's not looking at me anymore.

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, _seriously_. Excuse me, but if you don't wanna die, _Sora, _get out of my way."

Both of us turn like one unit to see a pool of darkness gathering on the glass panels. Like a horror movie, a dark hand reaches from the pool, pulling with it a sinewy body I don't want to recognize. Dark spikes of hair look oily with the darkness before it fades away, letting them settle into their natural arrangement. This is Vanitas, my brain informs me, and he wants me pushing daisies.

Sora is in motion quickly, pushing me behind him before a blinding array of lights shimmer at his hand. The lights manifest into one shape before, with a final flash, the key-weapon from before is tight in Sora's experienced grip. "What _is_ that thing?"

He glances back at me as Vanitas laughs mockingly, mimicking Sora's pose as, instead of little lights, swathes of darkness dance along his fingertips. Just as the gears begin to form on the other's weapon, Sora answers, "This is a keyblade. Mine is called the Kingdom Key, but it manifests with a different name for every person, should they be lucky enough to master one."

"And he has one, too," I breathe.

Sora nods. "That's the Void Gear. Watch yourself. He might really be able to kill you this time, Roxas."

"I'll do more than kill him!" Vanitas boasts as he lunges forward. Despite Sora's Kingdom Key's diminutive reach, he parries the Void Gear easy, the boy's legs bending easily to absorb the force. I back up when their blades sing through the air again, fighting like it's a game in which they take turns going on the offensive. "I'll eat his heart! I bet it'll taste great, and I'll take it as vengeance for that brat saddling me with you for all these years, Sora! It'll be a thing of beauty!"

"Get over yourself, Vanitas! You killed that boy already!"

Vanitas bounces back and away from their deadly dancing, before he dips a hand through the glass floor. I take a moment to realize he's plunged his fist through another pool of darkness. The muscles in his arm tense as he pulls his hand back out and snakes of darkness race across the tower top. They move fast and purposefully until they've made a half-circle around us, enough of a circle to show us that the only direction we can run is off the tower.

"I don't think so!" Sora barks as he pulls me close. The Kingdom Key's tip flies into the air as he holds me down with one hand and uses the other to raise his weapon. I look up sharply to see light gathering at rapid speed like a miniature sun. "Trinity!"

Immediately the orb punctures, beams of light rocketing free at Sora's command, targeting Vanitas's tendrils of darkness like missiles. Awestruck, I stay down near the ground even as Sora re-enters the fray, thrashing wildly at Vanitas. The other taunts and laughs in his strikingly familiar way, as though pleased that Sora and I are not dead yet, even if all he desires is, almost quite literally, my heart on a plate.

Time slows when I hear one last clang of weaponry and my eyes watch as the Void Gear successfully dislodges the Kingdom Key from Sora's grip, Vanitas's mighty blow sending the weapon flying through the air and Sora onto his back on the top of the tower, scrabbling and clawing to put space between them. The Kingdom Key lands teeth first into the glass, truly piercing through and radiating an alarming amount of cracks. It's so close by that the spider webbing darts between my sprawled limbs, a shock of terror shooting down my spine when I think the glass will finally give way under such abuse.

Vanitas jeers something that trails off into a manic laugh as I push myself away from the Kingdom Key. Then I can hear, "What's going to happen now? Do you think you can protect him from me _now_? Do you think you can even protect _yourself_?"

I remember last night's dream in which I was distraught with confusion of fright. I'd had the courage to take up Sora's Kingdom Key without preamble and had managed to ruthlessly challenge Vanitas before. I'd come out with gears knotting up my insides, but I woke up in the safety of my twisted sheets. Sora warned me that this time could end very differently.

But I'm finding myself having difficulty caring. This is _my dream_, and there is no way I'm going to lose my life to this joker, all slasher smiles and poisonous words. If I can't take control of my life outside this dark world of towers and mayhem, then I can do it here, and I _dare_ anyone to try and stop me.

I step back onto the cracks with a hefty lunge, clenching my teeth to bide my fear away when I hear the cracks spread even farther with my body's weight, and I wrap my fingers around the hilt of the Kingdom Key. With a pull it budges a little, and with a second it comes free, and miraculously and impossibly, the glass panels beneath me maintain their place. For both the peace of my mind and my dream-logic honor, I move away from the dangerous network of cracks, speeding my way over to Vanitas and Sora.

"Look who's trying to play the hero again!" Vanitas shouts through a laugh over Sora's warning, but I ignore him.

Or maybe I just can't hear him. There's a voice in my head, one I don't recognize though it is warm and parental, and I am dimly aware it's the voice of the Kingdom Key itself. _I'm not yours, you can't win with me. But you, too, have the power while you are here..._

Light once again shapes the form of the Kingdom Key in my right hand as I dash forward and Vanitas's grin fades from his face into a look that is equal parts confused and determined. I brace my other hand against the hilt and my fingers before drawing away, unsurprised that the light as expanded to my other hand as well. Two shining blades finally form in both my grips, long keyblades in black and white.

One is white and angelic in form, and its voice reminds me of an ocean's wave. _I can help you. Let my winds guide and protect you._

The other is black and menacing, its voice that of a confident baritone. _I am your strength, allow me to cut down your enemies._

"Aero!" spills by my lips without my consent, but I don't mind when I can feel the white one's pure, unadulterated happiness in my consciousness. I lift off into the air like I'm its javelin, wind supporting me and tussling my hair.

As Vanitas stares up, agape and horrified, and Sora's worried face has transformed into a wide, toothy grin, I let the winds drop me above them. As I barrel down towards Vanitas, black keyblade poised to strike and all its excitement bubbling in my blood, I hear him gasp, "Oblivion and Oathkeeper...?"

He manages to dodge out of the way enough that I can't seriously harm him, but the black keyblade nicks him just a bit.

"What are you going to do now, Vanitas?" I hear Sora, who is pushing himself up from behind me. As soon as he regains his feet, the swarm of lights dances once again to his hand, Kingdom Key taking form. "You can't have Roxas. Everyone is against you, and you don't stand a chance."

Outnumbered and certainly underpowered, I hope, Vanitas steps back with a grimace, Void Gear nearly limp in his hand. He smirks suddenly, like he's just come up with the best idea in the damn world. "Do you really think you two can beat me like this? And Sora, just because you got lucky with that _whore_ you loved before doesn't mean you can save her son, too."

I almost drop my weapons. _What?_

"Leave Kairi out of this!" Sora bellows as he rushes forward, a bull to a matador, and Vanitas is quick to use his anger against him, ducking to the side and using the flat of the Void Gear to smash Sora in the back. "You've done enough!" he cries as he topples to the floor, distressed.

"C'mon, Sora. You won't let me have the whore, you won't let me take away the man that _stole_ her from you, and now you won't let me kill the spawn. You're really just no fun."

"Enough," I say quietly. "Enough!"

Oathkeeper, the white blade's name is, uses her power of the wind to propel me forward with phenomenal speed, and Oblivion's sharp teeth bite into Vanitas's chest. For a moment he doesn't react, only stares at the point of impact with a blank expression. Then, he laughs. "Look at the balls on this punk. You're really not helping your case, _you little bastard_."

He swings the Void Gear more swiftly than ever and I see the gears of teeth heading towards my face. I can't react quick enough, clamping my eyes shut as I wait for the inevitable agony—

"Wake up, Roxas!"

I open my eyes, breathing heavy, and Mom is standing before me. It's still dark out, but it's not the impenetrable darkness of my dream scape, and I can see my room's furnishings very well through the moonlight filtering through the blinds. "M-mom...?"

It's rare that Mom remembers that she is, indeed, a mother, so to find her standing by my bedside is shocking. She looks curiously at my hands, clenched tightly in the blankets, before she watches my face again. "Are you okay? Your father was having a nightmare and it woke us both up. I came to check up on you and your sister, and I'm surprised you're sleeping poorly, too."

I sit up in bed, looking away from her. Confused, I can only cry silently.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I'd apologize for this update's long wait, but I'm not going to? Why? Because it always seems to take me a year to update The Boy in the Mirror, lol. And because it's at the bottom of my priority list. But don't think I've abandoned it!**

**Special thanks to readers, please drop a review!**

**Also, I think it's interesting to give the keyblades voices and personalities. Oathkeeper is based off, strangely enough, LittleKuriboh's Ocean (think Mako Tsunami, guys, when she "forgives him"), and Oblivion's is based off the man who sings Ifrit's version of the Hymn of Fayth from FFX. I think Kingdom Key would sound like Jun Fukuyama, and Void Gear is definitely the Riddler from the Arkham Asylum/City Batman games.**


End file.
